


In an Apartment on the Moon

by epersonae



Series: Aftermath [20]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dating, F/M, Post-Canon, Wonderland issues, rekindling a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 05:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15722622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Magnus visits the Director's private quarters at the Bureau for the first time. Lucretia talks cooking. Tea is served.





	In an Apartment on the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if it's really done, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. (There's a longer, smuttier version that I've been working on but just can't get to come together. Maybe someday. Like the library fic, this could have a part two?)

After dinner, neither of them wants to part. So Lucretia leads Magnus to the main dome, through the entrance hall, past the reception desk, into her office and through the door into a back hallway. 

“Was this always here?” he asks. 

“It was a little different before,” she says, clipped, thinking of how it had been, thinking of Junior, of Barry, of Merle and Angus and Taako on the day. She taps out the code to unlock her apartment— a different code than she’d had on her old secret office, nothing so emotionally fraught. He kisses the back of her neck. 

“Magnus.” Her voice is soft, warning. She turns slightly to glance at him.

“What?” He looks up and down the hall. “Not like anyone’s gonna see.” He kisses her cheek. “Not like I care if they do either.”

“True,” she says, turning, all the way around. She still feels oddly exposed here, even with no one around, and she pushes the door open, backs into her apartment with him still kissing her.

He pulls away to look around, takes a sharp breath as he looks through the enormous curved windows to the endless vista of stars above them. The room is more window than anything else — a kitchen hardly large enough for the name, a tiny table with a single chair, a loveseat, an easel and paints. The painting on the easel is an abstract watercolor; it almost looks like Fisher but the colors are all wrong. Beyond, a curtained archway he assumes (hopes, imagines) leads to her bed. 

“Tea?” she asks. “I should have some oolong in here.” She turns from him to the kitchen, her movements shy and jumpy. She has neither the Director’s composure nor an old lover’s ease. 

“That’d be great.” He follows her in, dropping his coat over the back of a chair, runs his hands along the counter. The surface is cool and smooth, like a lab, or like — 

“Reminds me of the Starblaster,” he says, as she starts the kettle and takes out a pair of elegant handmade mugs. 

“Huh.” She looks at it as if seeing something for the first time. “I guess….”

“Counters are even the right height,” he says; he catches a moment when her hands are empty and lifts her up to sit on the countertop. She rolls her eyes, but fondly.

“I suppose so,” she says. “Well, since you’ve set me here, will you get the sugar out for us?”

“Sure, sure, sure,” and he holds up a hand asking which one; she points, and he opens the cabinet. There’s not much in there, aside from the tins of tea, the jar of sugar. Oatmeal, peanut butter, a loaf of bread, canned soup.

“Well now I see why you wanted to go out, not much in here you could do anything with. I’d be happy to go shopping with you if you want the company. Shield you from Garfield if I gotta.”

She chuckles.

“No it’s fine, I just don’t… I don’t cook much anyway.”

He turns to look at her; he touches her knee. She almost flinches.

“Really?”

“Just busy,” she says with a shrug.

He hums.

“Well, next time” (his heart surges, thinking of a  _ next time _ ) “I’ll bring a bunch of good stuff from the farmer’s market in the Roost and we’ll make dinner together.”

Her mouth twists in a sad frown.

“Sure,” she says, but barely above a whisper, not looking at him.

He takes her hand; it’s trembling.

“Luce?” She shakes her head. “Hey, Luce, you used to like to cook. I mean, not like— but still, you got pretty good. This….” He gestures at the cabinets. “Doesn't seem like you.”

“A lot of things have changed,” she says, and her tone is deceptively light compared to the grief he can see in her eyes. 

“Don’t play it off like that,” he says, his grip on her hands tightening. “Is it bad memories? I know he's still mad at you, but—”

She shakes her head. “It's not that. I wish it were that simple. I—” She swallows, looks away. “Oh Magnus. I was a fool. I gave up—”

“Wonderland,” he says flatly. 

Her momentary smile is hard and bitter. 

“Got it in one.”

“What did you…?”

“ _ Cooking proficiency. _ Which, honestly, comes down to everything I remembered that they— All the things I learned from Lup and Taako about— Every little tip and trick and all the things I learned to make by heart. All of it, Magnus. Because— because I thought I was close. The bell, I thought it was almost in my grasp, and I'd, I'd have at least Taako back again and it wouldn't matter, not really.” Her eyes are dry and her face is blank. She laughs, a small sharp sound. “Didn't think I could be that wrong.”

He lets go of her hands and cradles her face; her eyes are still cast down and away.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Can you cook at all?”

She exhales loudly. “Some things I learned when I was a kid. Sometimes I can follow a recipe? But things go wrong, weird things. Where surely they must have….” She trails off; he remembers all the times he’d find her in the galley with one or the other of them. Her and Lup behind the counter with their heads together, whispering and giggling. Her and Taako, and he was expounding on some important principle of cookery, while she did the actual work.

“Anyway,” she says with a note of finality, just as the kettle begins its disconcertingly cheerful whistle. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “I manage,” she says. 

“I know, but—” He takes the kettle off of the heat, pours water in the cups; the familiar scent fills the air, leaves unfurling in the near-boiling water. 

“Those were my choices,” she says. “They weren't always good ones.”

“You know, Cam ended up saving our lives,” he blurts out. She kicks her heels in a nervous rhythm against the lower cupboards. “Sorry— I know— but he did. It was lucky we found him.”

Another soft mirthless laugh. 

“I mean, Wonderland was just bad fucking news, Luce. That's not on you.”

She hums, hops down from the counter, and takes her cup of tea. 

“I think I have a tin of butter cookies in here,” she says. 

“Changing the subject, but thanks?”

She puts a few cookies on a plate; he takes a few more from the tin and goes to sit on the loveseat. She looks at him there, taking more than half of the seat, and sits at the little table with her cup. He laughs and pats the seat beside him. 

Her answering laugh is a fraction more genuine, her posture that much more relaxed as she nestles in beside him and sips her tea, reaches for a cookie. 

“I lost ten years,” he says, his tone deliberately conversational, “and a pinkie. Some ‘vitality’, I guess? And, uh,” he pauses, struggling to shape the thought, “a memory? Someone— someone I hated? The guys say not to worry about it.”

She makes a little noise, and when he looks down at her, she’s staring off through the enormous window. 

“And then, ‘bad luck’, which, just fucking redundant really.”

“That's when you— you—” He can feel her whole body tense beside him.

“Yeah, that's when I beefed it, Bell threw me right out of my body.”

“God, that sounds awful.”

“Won't lie, definitely sucked. Would've been a goner if it weren't for Taako and Merle. Still pretty weird, honestly, you know, that body Garfield, just….”

She shudders. He strokes her knee. 

“Y’know, I wonder if he, or Barry, like maybe you could…”

She shakes her head. “I don't think Kravitz would take that very well, dear.”

“Oh, yeah, you're probably right.” He laughs. “That shit I guess is necromancy? I dunno, you know me and magic.” He sighs. “I would if I could, though.”

“That's sweet of you.”

“What is it Lup used to say, can’t spell necromantic without romantic?”

She snorts, then sighs.

“Oh, I haven’t heard that in years.” She looks at him with thoughtful eyes. “You…. You spend time with them. Are they…?”

“They’re doing real good.” He scratches the back of his head absentmindedly, takes a sip of tea. “I think— Lup’d be glad to see you more, I think.”

“Hm.” She eats a cookie slowly, then rests her empty hand on his leg. “I’ve seen them a few times, you know, Angus and all that. It’s….” Her face scrunches up and she shrugs. 

He sets down his cup and puts his arm around her. “They’ll come around. I don’t think  _ Lup’s _ mad, anyway.” He turns, as best he can on the crowded seat, and touches her face, feeling the tension in her jaw. “Besides, I’m not here to talk about  _ them. _ Let ‘em feel how they’re going to feel, not our problem.”

She looks up at him with that thoughtful expression. “I think Merle’s rubbing off on you,” she says, the slightest teasing lilt in her voice.

“Don’t even joke,” he replies.

“I never joke,” she says, completely deadpan, and he can't help but laugh. 


End file.
